Gender Differences in Constituency Service Among State Legislators

Abstract

Do female state legislators differ from men in constituency service? Using a four-state survey of state legislators, we find that women receive more casework requests, are twice as likely to believe that they perform more casework than their state colleagues, and are three times more likely to agree that they would perform more casework if additional staff were available, even after controlling for a variety of other explanations. These findings support the sex role socialization literature that argues that interpersonal relations figure more predominantly in the motives of female officeholders than for men.